Lots of fun. I remember being blown away by this book as a kid, and I suspect the big reason was just the idea of - mild spoiler - leaving the map to your treasure encoded by training several parrots each to speak one of the clues. Brilliant. I find myself mildly surprised that Agatha Christie never thought of it.

A couple of the coincidences are pretty far out there - this isn't deathless prose we're talking about - but kids should enjoy it. ( )

I loved this series when I was a child, and am looking forward to reading them sometime soon with my son. ( )